Tom Paine – an Englishman returned from twenty years abroad – blogs for liberty in Britain

Posts categorized "European Union"

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Apple has conducted itself in Ireland in full compliance with Irish tax law. The so-called "loophole" (aka lawful structuring) was not something devious used deceptively but was well known to — and accepted by — the Irish tax authorities. The Irish government agrees that Apple has done nothing wrong and is embarrassed at being put into this invidious position.

The EU Commission — probably at the behest of the leaders of core EU "boss states" envious of the high-tech jobs Ireland's well-educated, English-speaking young workers are enjoying. — has argued, and the European Court has now decided, that the arrangements were illegal "state aid" and the Apple should pay up to €13bn in taxes neither it, its legal advisers nor the Irish tax authorities think is due. As an Irish politician has already commented, "they want us to tax Apple here on money made elsewhere".

There is no doubt that Apple, Inc. acted in good faith. Its shareholders (probably including you, gentle reader, if you have a pension plan, life assurance policy or other investment as few portfolios lack some holdings of the world's largest company) have every right to be furious at the EU's attempt to rewrite the laws in retrospect to their detriment.

Theresa May's government should make it clear that it will replicate whatever attractive arrangements Ireland had been offering in return for the relocation of Apple's European operations here. Under longstanding arrangements that predate EU free movement, Apple's existing Irish employees are able to move here without restriction and even vote in our elections. They will be most welcome.

Outside the statist, near fascist mindset of the EU, there is nothing to stop Britain abolishing corporation tax (a pointless tax anyway as the burden of it — as a company is a mere legal fiction — always falls in truth on its employees, shareholders or customers). Then watch all the great companies of Europe as well as the Americas move here to be based in a place with the rule of law, the greatest reservoir of international legal, accountancy and other expertise in the world, no retrospective legislation and with the world's financial centre at hand.

With the extra taxes earned not from stupid corporation tax but from the income tax of the new British companies' employees etc., the government could pay for the infrastructure and educational improvements required to make sure the country and the new corporate arrivals reap the long term benefits of their short term decision.

Friday, July 01, 2016

Once again, leaving the UK does not get me away from the topic of Brexit. My Continental friends on Facebook are still burbling away about how (a) we're doomed without them because our economy will wither and die if not tied to their withering, dying economies and (b) they're doomed because we have given stupid ideas to their proles who must at all costs be ignored for fear of the return of fascism. Which is it guys? A big happy European family that we are being rude by leaving, or a seething mob of would-be fascists that we must help repress?

My Russian friends are asking questions too. They expressed mild amusement at the way President Putin was used by Remain as a bogeyman in the referendum campaign. Unfortunately that also reinforced their long-held and utterly-misguided view that the West lives its entire life in negative relationship to Russia. They imagine we think of them like SNP voters think of England; vicious, calculating hostiles who are the cause of every problem in our lives. I spent six years here trying to convince them that we were happy that Russia had rejoined the free world and wished it well. David Cameron blew that, along with everything else in his political career.

We had some discussion over drinks as to whether Brexit opened opportunities to ease economic sanctions which are hurting them almost as much as they are hurting us. The U.K. is correctly perceived to have been a sanctions hawk within both the EU and NATO. With us already out of the EU equation when it comes to forming policy, I suppose it's possible things may ease up. On the other hand, the sanctions that hurt the Russian elite the most are those applied through the City of London and Wall Street.

Perhaps it may help Russia to have a new party to talk to. However I have encountered no celebrations of the kind Cameron so dishonestly predicted.

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Soldiers provide an honour guard at the tomb of the unknown solider in Warsaw, as they do 24 hours a day throughout the year.

I worked in Warsaw from 1992 to 2003 and have been visiting it in the past three days. Watching a nation rebuild itself on the smouldering ruins of a communist economy had, I think it's fair to say, a profound influence on my life. I had been a Leftist in my callow youth, was a mainstream Thatcherite Conservative when I arrived here in my early 30s but learned, as I watched the Polish people rebuild, that she had not gone nearly far enough. The sheer joyful power of unrestrained market forces was not something I had experienced in the grey, regulated, socialist Britain of that era. It was akin to magic as the invisible hand did its stuff.

In business we talk of "the hog cycle". Demand for pork rises and more farmers switch to pig farming to chase the profit. Supply rises to match demand and prices fall. Too many farmers switch and prices crash. Lots of pig farmers (especially the new, inexperienced ones) go bankrupt. Pig farming becomes unpopular as the risks become clear. Farmers switch to more promising products and supply falls until it meets demand and prices rise again. Farmers will not return immediately to raising pigs when prices rise again because the memory of the last cycle lingers. Only when a new generation that doesn't remember the last crash arrives does production rise again.

All the young people I worked with in early post Communist Poland had grown up in a socialist society with its shortages, corruption and oppression. They went to with a will to build a modern economy and achieved startling success. They had largely done it by the time I left Poland – the Remainers claiming that the EU rebuilt post-communist Eastern Europe don't know what they are talking about. Poles welcomed EU accession as a symbol of acceptance back into the free world but the business people and professionals I know here are – although the country is a net gainer from the EU budget – little more enthusiastic about it than the French and Germans. And let's not forget French and German polls suggest their voters think less of it than the British who may be about to leave!

The children of the youngsters I worked with are now young adults themselves. They regard the Communist era as pure history and are making political noises that suggest a hankering, at some level, for the "good old days". My friends can't understand it but it's really just the political version of the hog cycle. Freedom needs advocates in every generation, no matter how clear the lessons of history may seem to those who lived through it. No battle, however noble, is every finally won.

It was not a great time to visit with Brexit in the air. I wanted to hear about my old friends' careers, families and general health and welfare. They wanted to know if Britain was going to Leave, how I would vote and what were my reasons. Although I had no time to blog, I was talking politics all the time alas. Not least of course when I had a pre-lunch drink with Dick Puddlecote on Sunday! He happened to be in Warsaw for a harm reduction conference and it was good to catch up.

It was a great weekend. I am back in Britain tomorrow in readiness for referendum day.

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Thomas Paine (January 29, 1737 – June 8, 1809) is my political
hero. I didn't adopt his name as a nom de guerre because
I agreed with all he wrote. I hubristically purloined
it because I admired the force of his writing. "Common
Sense" was the most influential pamphlet in the history of the
world and - had the internet existed in the 18th Century - it
would have been a blog post. In a vain (in both senses of the
word) attempt at sympathetic magic, I hoped - when I began this
blog over eleven
years ago - that it might have half as much effect.

He left school at 12 and never went to university. He was an
autodidact, spending spare cash on books and
spare time on attending lectures and debates. It speaks to
his greatness that he is claimed these days by both Left and
Right - each conveniently ignoring those parts of his thought
that don't match their thinking. He believed in society
taking care of the weak and unfortunate but he did not confuse
society in any way with the state. He was a sceptic when it came
to government. He was reviled and assaulted in the USA he helped
found because no sooner was the revolution over than he
was attacking corruption in the new government. He was
sentenced to death in Revolutionary France, where he sat in the
National Assembly, for opposing the execution of the King
and denouncing the Terror.

He died thinking himself a failure; disappointed with the
outcomes of both the French and American revolutions and sad that
he had not been able to incite one in England. But his words
still echo. He proved that one person can make a difference if
prepared to put his work before his safety. He's not alive any
more but he's still dangerous. More so perhaps than the Lenin and
Marx with whom Steinbeck once bracketed him. His ideas will live
as long as free men breathe.

I was pleasantly surprised by the even-handed approach of Melvyn
Bragg - a Labour luvvie if ever there was one - in presenting
Paine's story in his "Radical Lives" series. I commend his
programme to you.

At this moment of British Crisis, with rogues on both sides
of the referendum debate playing on our fears, I
also commend to you the words from Paine's American
Crisis that Washington read aloud to his troops before the
Battle of Trenton;

“These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier
and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the
service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves
the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is
not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us,
that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness
only that gives everything its value.”

I will not lower myself to conscript the dead to my cause as
both Leave and Remain have done with Thatcher and
Churchill. For all I know, Paine might have supported the
EU, while demanding more effectively than we have ever done the
application of real democracy and the extirpation of
corruption in its governance. Still, I feel sure that the
emotional response of free men and women to the aristos of the
European elite should be the same as that of Paine to the "asses
for lions" of the 18th Century. Our modern aristos are
self-selected, rather than picked at random by nature, but their
contempt for the people they seek to rule and their sense of
entitlement to lord it over us, is every bit as
profound. They should meet the same fate and I hope - in my own
name not Tom's - that June 23rd begins their procession to a
figurative guillotine.

Sunday, May 29, 2016

My Sunday Times today has an article about the booze culture of Westminster. It's an interesting enough piece but what struck me most was the title; "Drunk in charge of the nation". Are our political leaders — drunk or sober — really in charge? Does the government "run the economy?"

The Executive and its minions in the Civil Service run the state. The Legislature determines (directly, or by delegation to Quangos or treaty organisations) the extent of that state's rôle in the affairs of the nation. The Judiciary adjudicates disputes both between citizens and between citizen and state. But the state and the nation are not the same thing.

The British state is undoubtedly too big, too costly, too intrusive, too wasteful, too stupid and generally too big for its boots but we, the more or less willingly governed, are the nation. The state and its employees are our — more or less humble — servants. The money they mostly squander comes from (or in the case of its drunken sailor borrowings is underwritten by) the private sector in the broadest sense of the term. Everyone who pays taxes from earnings *not* paid to them by taxpayers funds the state.

The state is to some extent a necessary cost to the nation. In Britain, as in the rest of the free world, political debate largely turns upon the "someness" of that extent.

In that crucial debate, confusing the ideas of "state" and "nation" helps statists. It allows them to brand as disloyal any opposition to state projects. I certainly saw that during my days in Russia where the ruling kleptocracy allows no such distinction. Though the Russian nation is as cultured, enterprising and lovable as the Russian state is vile, vulgar and putrid the fallacy that to oppose the state is unpatriotic prevents rational debate. In truth, as Edward Abbey (and not, as mistakenly suggested on the Internet, my illustrious namesake) said

We anti-statists don't help clarify this state/nation confusion by constantly focussing on the centrality of the state. Almost everything that's good about our nation; its culture, its wealth, its inventiveness, its civil society, its philanthropy, its charity, even its sport flourishes in spite, not because, of the great bloated parasite that hectors, lectures, condescends to and tyrannises us.

In our darkest moments perhaps we should remind each other that our nation may not flourish as it deserves because of our defective state, but that it still flourishes. Only a healthy beast could gambol on with such an enormous bloodsucking parasite draining its vitality. Certainly not one that was "run" or "controlled" by it.

Thursday, May 19, 2016

I gave up political blogging for selfish reasons. I felt I had said my piece, that's true. I was afraid of repeating myself, that's also true. But I found it stressful, was dispirited and was seeking to avoid personal conflict with those around me (i.e. most people in my circle) who do not share my views. My career had ended. My marriage had ended with the death of my wife. The life I had known was over. Throwing my blog onto the burning longboat seemed natural.

There are important developments in the political world - some of them encouraging. In a democracy every humble voice should matter but to matter, it must first be heard. There is still no political party in Britain that wants to hear views like mine. I don't own a newspaper or a TV station but I do still have a blog. Candle, darkness, curse etc.

After giving up political blogging I attended an event at the Adam Smith Institute. A few young people inclined to a liberty-driven view of politics were kind enough to buy me a drink and tell me they had had enjoyed reading my posts here. Their own intellect and studies had led them to where they stood politically, but it was good to feel I had encouraged them a little. I have often thought about that since and smiled.

I have also enjoyed reading and watching Trevor Phillips, formerly of the National Union of Students (where I first encountered him in the 1970's) and latterly of the Equalities Commission, express Guardian-annoying views in the past couple of years. It's probably coincidence of course (or a good example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy) but these views seem to have emerged since an encounter with him at a Battle of Ideas event.

I have strong feelings (and some relevant experience) on the subject of the EU. The voice of the late Mrs Paine has been in my ear on that subject. Years ago, she asked me to stop talking about it because (a) I was becoming a bore and (b) there was no hope of change. But she would have thought it odd for me not to speak about it when there is a chance to fix what she always viewed as an historic national error.

Many drops of water, over time, can form a canyon. Perhaps I owe a duty to drip a little more?

Tuesday, March 04, 2014

I have nothing constructive to say on Ukraine. You may imagine, given my years living in Moscow where this blog began, and given the news from former colleagues in my old firm's Kiev office, that I am pretty depressed by the news.

I have spent my years since I left Russia telling people to forget what they thought they knew and believe in the future of a cultured, civilised and friendly people. I still believe that's what they are, but their system for choosing leaders - and restraining them once they are chosen - seems to be as catastrophic as ever it was.

Whatever else Vladimir Putin thinks he is up to, he has restored every thuggish stereotype of Russia in an instant. Time will tell if the Cold War is back, but there's no doubt now that Francis Fukuyama made a major fool of himself when he published this book.

The BBC is reporting that Putin has said there is no need to send in troops yet. They are of course already there, but Russia and the West are pretending they are not; each for its own reasons. My favourite miliblogger, Sean Linnane, clarifies that for us, commenting;

Always some guy in the unit who can't figure out what "sterile" fatigues means

Before Russia I lived in Poland for eleven years and you can imagine how many "I told you so's" I am hearing from my friends there. I apologise publicly to those I called paranoid about Russia. Przepraszam.

Amid those communications however came one Polish joke about what's going on. Enjoy! (click to enlarge)

Translation: In view of the situation in the Ukraine, France has surrendered.

Friday, October 25, 2013

When the Euro was about to be launched a colleague and I were in Germany on business. Over drinks with our German business partners they teased us about it. In all previous such conversations with them we had been primarily concerned about the impact of EU policy on the UK's interests. As a global trading nation, we argued, these often diverge from those of the more parochial economies of mainland Europe. To their surprise, on this occasion we were more worried about Germany for whom we predicted the Euro would be a disaster.

I told them of overhearing the then Finance Minister of a less wealthy EU country explaining to a group of Economics students how he proposed to 'pump up' their currency in advance of joining the Euro. Once in, he told them, the marriage to the Deutsche Mark would give his citizens high purchasing power and increase their ability to borrow. My colleague pointed out that, because of their history, Germans are averse to debt and afraid of inflation, while other Europeans are not. They - and their governments - rather like the idea of large debt paid back in bad coin.

They scoffed, but history proved them wrong. The Greek government, for example, had lied through its teeth in the run up to joining EMU and has been officially criticised for continuing to do so in the years following the adoption of the Euro. They statistically masked the effects of their orgy of spending and debt until there was nothing to do but prop them up if the currency was not to be jeopardised.

Our German business-friends were man enough to call my colleague last year and tell him that we had been right. I take no pleasure in that. History continues to vindicate commonsense over voodoo economics, without ever teaching the 'something for nothing' crowd to adjust their expectations to reality. I also feel no glee at the stirrings in the French Establishment about 'Frexit.' I would rather be rich than right. I would rather be free than either. This mess is going to hurt me in the end, however right I was.

Just look at the views of François Heisbourg, as reported in the linked Telegraph Blog. He is a Knight of the Legion of Honour and holder of the French Order of Merit. He is also Chairman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and an insider Énarque par excellence. You will find little sign in his words of a new dawn of commonsense in the European élite.

The dream has given way to nightmare. We must face the reality that the EU itself is now threatened by the euro. The current efforts to save it are endangering the Union yet further

The retreat he proposes is merely tactical. He is still locked into the mad meme of 'ever closer union.' His only concern is that introducing the Euro too soon has threatened that objective.

In my view, the introduction of the Euro was a misjudged attempt to bounce Europe into political union. The federalists knew that a currency crisis would happen. If two middle-aged English lawyers could predict it over beer in Frankfurt, how could the great minds of the Énarques fail? I believe they anticipated the current crisis (or something like it) and believed it would force a concentration of political power, however little European citizens might want it.

It never made sense for nations with different economies, fiscal policies and approaches to state expenditure to be locked into a single currency without a single government. The crisis turned out to be a bug, but it was meant to be a feature. Even now most federalists, disappointed though they must be that Europeans' appetite for union has diminished in its wake, are still claiming all is well. Those, like Heisbourg, who say that;

God knows denial has been for a long time, by default, the operating mode of those in charge of EU institutions.

are simply concerned that the political miscalculation of premature currency union is now threatening the success of the whole project. None of them have learned a thing.

No less predictable, but far more chilling, are these words;

Money has to be at the service of the political structure, not the other way around

He says it to oppose those federalist politicians who, he claims, are trying to shape political structures to prop up the Euro. He is right to oppose that and might say, I suppose, that I am taking his words out of context. Still I think, in a Freudian way, they are incredibly revealing of the attitudes of our political elites.

Until our mad masters re-learn that money is a means of exchange at the service of the whole society there is no hope for our economic security. The users of a currency are the ones who matter, not the politicians administering it. We 'own' our money and the underlying value it represents, not them. The only true economic role of 'the political structure' is to ensure its soundness so that we can continue to trust it. That they now complain we don't trust them is very largely a product of their failure to perform that basic task. They have behaved like racketeers and cannot complain when that's how they are seen.

Political elites have got away so long with debasing money to serve their own ends that it now seems they have come at last to believe that this is its true purpose.

Saturday, August 31, 2013

The Freedom Association and Better Off Out have just published their snappily-titled annual "Balance of Competences Review", which looks at the EU's effect on the UK's place in the world. This link will take you to your very own free copy for download. Even if you are already sceptical of the benefits to the British people of EU membership, I think you may be shocked.

Did you know for example that, as reported in the Freedom Association's newletter today;

Since 2000 the European Union has given the Assad Regime over £1 billion. The money, given to promote such things as "good governance," "social reform" and "economic reform" have obviously all failed - to the detriment of the people of Syria and the international community. However, this revelation was ever the more startling as the United Kingdom did not participate in some of these schemes. It raises further questions over the extent of UK influence within the EU, when programmes fund unsuitable regimes without explicit UK support.

You might very well say that, but you might also note that while Britain did not "participate" directly, as one of the few consistent net contributors to the EU budget*, it certainly contributed financially. Nor is this a "Britain vs the rest" issue. Few taxpayers in any EU country would support having their money given to President Assad. This is an actually an example of the sort of idiocy that is inevitable when a significant proportion of GDP is taken by force and spent by people who do not have to work or risk their own capital to earn it. Our argument here is not with the other peoples of Europe. It almost never is. It's with the bunch of unethical parasites who are living on all our backs.

We cant even be blamed for choosing wrongly. We have no opportunity to elect EU officials. Yet sadly, even when we do theoretically have a choice in our own countries, it's only between different groups of people attracted to the job of taking money by force from their fellow-citizens. Is it any surprise that such a job description attracts the ethically-challenged?

You might naievely expect a government or inter-governmental institution to adopt the approach of a responsible board of a commercial company. Every penny of taxpayers' money expended should be measured against the anticipated benefits to be gained for those taxpayers, just as a board should serve the interests of its shareholders. Sadly, that's a poor metaphor for government. A company's board is dealing with money volunteered by investors who have lots of other choices. A government or treaty organisation is much more like a criminal gang dealing with extorted money. Looked at from that perspective, it's no surprise that the attitude is "easy come, easy go" and "why not give a cut to the gangsters in the neighbouring parishes if it helps to smooth things over". An EU official or politician in any EU country has far more in common with President Assad than with a productive citizen.

To someone with such a mentality, if some money is wasted so what? There's plenty more where it came from. So there always will be until the whole scam collapses or the peoples of Europe make it clear that the inferred "consent" of the social contract is a nonsense and that these actions are not in our name. That's not easy to do, particularly given the corrupt astroturfing shenanigans in which the EU gangsters indulge. But the tough message the British people have just forced their government to give to the people of Syria - that it's up to them to sort out their own corrupt rulers and the cavalry is simply not coming - applies just as much to us.

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* This table is based on EU data and the situation is therefore of course far worse than stated. It ignores Agricultural levies and customs contributions, for example, and Britain's share of the former will be massively disproportionate given the superior efficiency of our large, capital-intensive farms. It also ignores administrative costs.

Thursday, March 07, 2013

Tell a statist that the government spends too much of GDP; that the state should be scaled down and taxes reduced and the response is highly predictable. He will start talking about doctors and nurses, teachers and policemen. Within minutes, unless we are battle-hardened by many years of political debate, he will have established an apparent moral ascendency. Onlookers will wonder how we could be so cruel.

But that's not just, or even mainly, how tax money gets spent. For example, I was horrified to learn from Chris Snowden's linked report for the Institute of Economic Affairs that an estimated €1 billion of the EU's budget is handed over to "sock puppet" charities, NGOs and other fake "civil society" actors in order to promote the political objectives of the EU Commission.

Most of these "civil society" organisations would not exist at all if it were not for EU funding. So far from being genuine expressions of voluntary, non-governmental and non-corporate opinion, they are mere political creatures. It is astro-turfing on a massive scale. The table below (from Chris's report) takes the list of the EU Civil Society Contact Group's members from its own site and shows both the income each receives from the European taxpayer and the percentage of its funding that represents.

Nota bene that much of the remaining funding for supposedly independent "civil society" groups is received from taxpayers at the national level! For example

Women in Europe for a Common Future received an EC grant of €1,219,213 in 2011, with a further €135,247 coming from national governments. This statutory funding made up 93 per cent of its total income while private donations contributed €2,441 (0.2 per cent) and member contributions just €825 (0.06 per cent).

In what universe can even the most dewy-eyed believer in the essential goodness of the state justify such a monstrous lie? If an organisation raises just 0.06% of its funding from its membership dues, it is not independent. If it gets 93% of its money from the state, it is the state's creature. This is taking money by force from the masses to tell them what to think - most notably about money being taken from them by force!

This is not about being pro- or anti-EU. It is not even on this occasion about being pro- or anti-state. Democracy is supposed to be about the people agreeing what they want done by state bodies and appointing public servants to get on with it. The servants are not supposed to steal their masters' money in order to promote their own objectives. That they do so is corruption, pure and simple.

Come on, statist readers. Justify this gangsterism if you can. And spare us the "doctors and nurses" bullshit for once.